Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster with Reverse Polarity and Tailored Mass Flux
AssigneeCU Aerospace, LLC
InventorsRodney Lane Burton, David L. Carroll, Joseph William Zimmerman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The MPD thruster improvements described here apply to coaxial gas-fed quasisteady self-field devices without auxiliary magnetic fields.
Claims12
An electromagnetic plasma accelerator used as a space thruster operating in a gaseous propellant-injected steady or quasisteady pulse mode comprising:
- a cylindrical discharge chamber of length sufficient to contain the discharge, formed by a central metal anode with a high positive voltage, a cylindrical outer cathode at a lower voltage than the anode coaxial with the central electrode, the chamber being closed at one end by an electrical insulator and being open at the opposite end to allow the accelerated propellant to exit at high velocity to create thrust, such that the primary direction of current is radially outward.
An electromagnetic accelerator fed by a cold gas propellant and operating in a steady or quasisteady pulse mode at a sufficient level of power that a large fraction of the injected cold gas is dissociated into atoms and ionized into ions and electrons by the current to create a fully ionized or nearly fully ionized plasma inside the cylindrical discharge chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.